Microsoft Lumia 535 is an entry level budget Windows Phone device which Microsoft launched few months back and it received good response from the people who are interested in giving Windows Phone a try because of its low price.

After trying our hands on the Lumia 535 Dual SIM for few days, we are going to share the detailed and in-depth hands on review of Lumia 535 with all readers of Geeky Stuffs.

There are two versions of Lumia 535 available – single SIM version and dual SIM version. Depending on that, you will have either one or two micro SIM card slots in your Microsoft Lumia 535. Both of these version are exactly same, the only difference is in the number of SIM slots they are having. So, you can consider this very same review for Lumia 535 and Lumia 535 Dual SIM both. This review is divided in different section covering features, specs and performance of Microsoft Lumia 535 separately.

Retail Box and Unboxing

Microsoft Lumia 535 comes in a standard Lumia retail box. The retail box of Lumia 535 contains the phone, battery, charger and some user manuals. Surprisingly, there is an earphones included in the Lumia 535 retail box too which was lacking in most of the current Lumia devices. So, you will not have to buy a pair of good headphones to enjoy the music on MixRadio or Xbox Music app.

Watch the Microsoft Lumia 535 unboxing video below.

Design

When it comes to design, all Lumia devices are different than the other smartphone available in the market but pretty similar to each other. Lumia 535 is also having the typical and popular Lumia smartphone design.

Lumia 535 is thick and looks very strong and durable. Since the Lumia 535 is an entry level smartphone, only plastic is used in its design. The back panel is very glossy and fingerprint magnet. It can be removed to put the battery, SIM cards and memory card inside the device.

There are just two keys on the body of Lumia 535 – volume rockers and the power on/off keys. There is no dedicated camera button as Lumia 535 is not a PureView smartphone sporting the Zeiss lens. The 5MP camera and the speaker is given on the back along with the flash on the side and a Microsoft logo in the center of the back panel. There are proximity sensor and 5MP camera on the front side. There are no capacitive keys provided separately and you will find them on screen tiself.

We performed a bend test on Lumia 535 and found it durable and strong enough as expected from its looks and design. We have also perform a running water test on our Lumia 535 to see how water resistance this device is and surprisingly it performed very well even though the water went inside the device.

Screen and Display

Lumia 535 comes with a 5-inch screen having 540 x 960 pixels resolution which will give you approximately 220 ppi pixel density which is even lesser than the Lumia 435 smartphone. The screen to body ratio is around 68%

Even though it is a budget smartphone, the screen of the Lumia 535 comes with Gorilla Glass 3 protection . The screen quality is good in Lumia 535 considering the price and specs of it, though you will not find pixels on the screen very easily. The sunlight readability is also pretty good if the brightness is on full.

We performed the knife scratch test and key scratch test on the screen of Lumia 535 to check how good is the Gorilla Glass 3 screen protection. It performed just great and came out of the test without getting a single scratch. You can watch the Lumia 535 knife scratch test video below.

Hardware Specs and OS

Lumia 535 is a 3G device and sports an older version of Snapdragon processor, Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 qual-core processor clocked at 1.2GHz. The processor is supported by 1GB of RAM and an Adreno 302 GPU which is quite old too. Internal memory in Lumia 535 is 8GB but it is expandable using the microSD card. You can use a memory card of up to 128GB to expand the memory. You also get the 15GB of cloud storage from the pre-installed OneDrive app.

But when it comes to performance, Lumia 535 is nowhere inferior to any smartphone. Lumia 535 comes with the Windows Phone 8.1 OS running on the Lumia Denim Update 1 version. So, you will be getting nearly all of the latest supported features and functionality in the Lumia 535.

Windows Phone 8.1 is less resource hungry OS and it is so well optimized that even low end phones like Lumia 535 perform pretty well. So even with the low specs, Lumia 535 performs pretty well for daily usage.

Though while benchmarking Lumia 535 did not score much because of its poor hardware specs, the real life performance is pretty much different. We played some heavy and high end games like Asphalt 8 : Airborne on our Lumia 535 and the performance was really nice without any lagging or major frame skipping. But sometimes you can feel few frame drops for sure while playing few high-end games.

Camera and Imaging

Lumia 535 sports a 5 MP primary camera which is capable of taking good quality images and 480p videos at 30fps. There is a 5 MP camera on the front side to take selfies and video chatting. The front facing camera can also record 480p resolution videos.

Surprisingly, the 5 MP primary camera is really good when it comes to image quality considering the low-end processor, 1/4’ image sensor and less number of mega-pixels. The images coming out of it are having good amount of details, less noise, good quality color rendering and sharpness too.

Also Lumia 535 supports all the features of Lumia Camera except the one which are available to only high end Lumia devices like Lumia 930, Lumia 830, Lumia 1520, Lumia Icon etc. So, you will get all the manual functions of Lumia Camera on Lumia 535 except the high quality output. Also, the shutter speed is limited to 1s max instead of 4s like in the high-end Lumia devices.

The biggest drawback of Lumia 535 camera is that it is very poor in video recording. It is capable of recording videos at 480p resolution only which is really low. It records videos in mono sound quality and the bitrate you get is around 3 Mbps only. But it let you use the audio bass filter to make sound in videos more audible while shooting it at loud and noisy places.

Still it lacks the charm of Lumia photography and if you are considering a Lumia device for its imaging quality, you can skip this device.

Entertainment and Gaming

Lumia 535 is having a 5-inch screen with better than average display quality which comes with 540 x 960 pixels resolution display. Though the screen is not great, Lumia 535 scores good in rest of the things.

The speaker is loud and clear. So if you are going to use Lumia 535 for playing games or listen music on speakers, you will like it for sure. There are two music apps pre-installed on Lumia 535 – MixRadio and Xbox Music. You can also put music from your computer and enjoy it on Lumia 535. There is also FM radio available in Lumia 535.

When it comes to gaming, Lumia 535 performs nice considering its low hardware specs. You will not feel any lagging while playing most of the high-end games. The touch sensitivity is smooth and responsive enough to enjoy the games.

Also the sensors like accelerometer performs very well too while playing games. Also, we have felt no heating issues while playing high end games on Lumia 535. So other than the average display and a bit of lagging in few high-end games, Lumia 535 performs really nice in gaming.

Productivity

When it comes to productivity, Windows Phone devices are the best. You get Cortana, the most advanced personal assistant on mobile, along with Microsoft Office Suite to perform all your office work on the go.

Also, the Start screen contributes a lot in saving time and improving the productivity. You can have a look on your Microsoft Lumia 535 tips and tricks video below to check all the features it offers to user.

Battery Performance

Lumia 535 comes with a removable Li-Ion 1905 mAh battery. Since the battery capacity is not huge, it performs average. Because of the small screen, low resolution display and less power hungry processor Lumia 535 let you use it from morning to night with moderate usage. But for a dual SIM phone, the battery is not more than average and just not suitable for the heavy users.

Conclusion

Microsoft Lumia 535 is an entry level smartphone but it is really a good performer considering its specs and its segment. The price of Lumia 535 is low and the performance you get out of it is worth more than it. The better than average screen and nice performance also justify the price of the Lumia 535.

The only drawbacks of Lumia 535 is the poor video recording quality, bulky design and average battery performance. If you are not much into taking pictures and looking for a new entry level smartphone then, Microsoft Lumia 535 is one of the best option available to you.